


Quite the One-Eighty

by betheflame



Series: Shorts & Drabbles 2020 [20]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28289649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: Steve has a bad day, Tony is a nervous wreck, Nat is intent on making popcorn garland, and it all works out in the end.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Shorts & Drabbles 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647499
Comments: 25
Kudos: 194





	Quite the One-Eighty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fiftyshadesofstony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiftyshadesofstony/gifts).



> This one is for fiftyshadesofstony who won a fic from me in the POTS Readathon Raffle. They requested Holiday AU Fluff and HERE YOU GO! Thanks to Marie for the beta, and to the folks this morning who helped put me in the frame of mind to write this. I am grateful for the folks in this fandom who make it home for me, and I wish you all the most restful end of this year as possible.

* * *

“BUCKY,” Nat roared from her place at the Christmas tree, “WE NEED MORE POPCORN.”

“I don’t understand why you’ve insisted on stringing it yourself,” Tony replied from the couch.

“How else can we get it to smell right?” Nat queried. “You need the cranberries for aesthetic and the fresh popped popcorn for the smell. This is not rocket science, Stark, it’s tradition.”

“I literally could hire people to do this.”

“But then my wife couldn’t use the needle to thread them and you know how much she loves sharp things,” Bucky replied as he delivered a fresh bowl to Nat. She rewarded him with a kiss, and then turned to stick her tongue out at Tony.

He lazily flipped her off, and went back to the note he was working on.

_Dear Steve,_

_I know this year has been hard_

He paused, tapping the pen against the pad impatiently. He scratched out what he’d written and started fresh.

_Steve,_

_You know I love you, or at least I hope you do, I tell you enough times a day. And I know it’s been a rough year, or a rough few years, but I know you’ll turn it around. I want to help, and I have a question_

“Jesus Christ, Stark, you’re not his Little League coach,” he said to himself.

He knew that if he ad-libbed what he wanted to say when Steve opened his present that he’d blow it completely. He’d ramble, and stick his foot in his mouth, and make everything awkward like he always did. Improvising for hundreds of shareholders? No problem. Teaching advanced electrical engineering to grad students at Colombia? No issue - he could lecture for hours without notes. Trying to propose to his boyfriend of eight years?

His entire brain filled with klaxons of panic noises, his tongue felt too big for his mouth, and he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands.

There was literally no surer thing than Steve Rogers accepting his proposal, and yet Tony’s hands would not stop sweating.

“The tapping, Stark,” Nat said from the tree. “I will kill you if it continues much longer.”

Most of the planet knew Natasha Barnes as the cool-as-ice Queen of Glenwick on the long running show Once Upon a Royal. She was coy in interviews, but genuinely warm, and the fandom assumptions of her character were based largely on her exceptionally active Instagram, which she curated within an inch of its life.

Her friends and family knew her as a stealthy, sarcastic, sass monster who put up with no one’s shit. She’d picked up quite a few tricks over the years as an actress, and one of them was a deep love of knives. Her pregnancy had made her notoriously short temper (which she curbed in public through her daily yoga practice, and a lot of therapy) even shorter and Tony did not doubt for a minute that she would kill him if he didn’t stop.

Scariest thing was that, since her breakout role ten years prior was as a serial killer, she probably knew how to get away with it, too.

“No murder at Christmas,” Bucky replied. Tony looked up to see that he was stringing popcorn as well. “I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

Nat was clearly about to reply as Bucky continued. “When’s the boy wonder due home?”

Tony checked his watch. “If he was fired? About ten minutes from now. If he managed to keep his job? I’d say around lunch.”

The sound of the garage door opening made all of them pause.

“So, fired then,” Nat said.

“I’d assume so,” Tony said with a sigh.

They did their best to pretend that they didn’t know that as Steve shuffled through the door, and de-winter-fied himself by hanging his hat, scarf, and coat on the rack by the door. “Hey everyone.”

The tone was flat, and that was the final confirmation Tony needed. “Another one bites the dust?”

“Rawlings said I’m not cut out for diplomacy,” Steve replied.

Tony fought every urge in his being not to snort. They’d all warned Steve that taking the job as a UN liaison for a NGO was suicide; that he could charm anyone in an interview, but that he was never going to be able to sit calmly across a table when innocents were being harmed. He’d sworn he could, that he wanted to be good at this.

Tony knew no one in the room was surprised that Steve wasn’t, except for Steve.

The man in question flopped himself on the couch and leaned into Tony, who opened his posture to accommodate. Tony kissed the top of his head. “I’m sorry, baby. I know you really wanted to help with the land mines.”

“Water charity, Tony.”

“Right, sorry, clean water. I get them all mixed up,” Tony confessed. One of the things Tony loved about Steve was how passionate he was about so many things. People looked at his outer shell - tall, blond, charming, with a wingspan that rivaled Lebron’s, and abs you could probably shred cheese on - and assumed that he was either a sociopath (because you only looked that perfect if there was something else deeply wrong with you) or Tony’s trophy boyfriend.

The sociopath thing Tony kinda got. He still wasn’t quite sure how Steve was both so gorgeous and so genuinely good. He was sure he was being duped.

His therapist referred to that as “self-fulfilling prophecies of fantastical proportions” and “massive abandonment issues”.

But the trophy boyfriend irked him. And he knew it irked Steve. Which is why the man spent most of his time trying his hand at job after job, trying to find the right fit. When they’d first met, Steve was an art student and Tony had just started his third company. He’d made a tidy profit on the first two, and so he was finally pursuing his ultimate goal - artificial intelligence. Every professor and investor had told him it was a pipe dream, and that he was nuts for trying. He figured he’d show them, raised the capital himself, and got to work.

He’d put an advertisement up on a campus billboard that he needed someone to design a logo, and the first email was from a “S. Rogers, Guilderall Hall, Room 239.” Tony had gone directly to Steve’s room and offered him a job, and they managed to not sleep together until Steve deposited Tony’s final check.

Four minutes after the check cleared still counted as “after”, as they frequently reminded both Natasha and Bucky whenever they were snarky asses about it.

Steve tried for a few years to get his art off the ground, but nothing ever really stuck. He dabbled in graphic design, but didn’t love it. After two years of trying to get his art into galleries, he went to grad school for international politics, and started volunteering for nonprofits. As Tony’s profile rose in the city, so did Steve’s. The Internet started Having Thoughts about them about six years into their relationship, and a few comments had gotten under Steve’s skin.

He’d tried to shift from volunteering to employment and it hadn’t gone … well.

First, there was the environmental charity where he got arrested for chaining himself to a construction site… which wasn’t what his supervisors wanted him to do at all. They’d sent him to help clean up the site, and Steve took a more drastic step.

A children’s charity where he got so mad at misappropriated funds that he leaked documents followed that, and then there was an educational nonprofit that got frustrated he told students college was too expensive to bother with. And then there was the drama with the land mines, before a truly unfortunate incident with that charity shop on 6th.

Steve was never wrong in his actions, in terms of morality, and Tony was always proud of him. They were all sure there was a job out there for a scrappy, stubborn giant with a heart of gold - they just hadn’t found it yet.

Mostly because Steve seemed to believe he could bend other people to his will by the sheer power of his rightness.

It was adorable.

It was exhausting.

It was everything Tony loved about Steve in one concept: he’d fight to the absolute death for what he believed in, and would never let power be abusive on his watch, and he loved with his entire being.

Tony had tried to propose four previous times, and chickened out each time. Steve wasn’t entirely sure about marriage early in their relationship and spent the first five or so years telling Tony that he never wanted to get married. It wasn’t until Bucky met Nat, actually, that Steve started changing his mind. As Bucky whirled his freshly-dubbed bride around the dance floor, Steve leaned into Tony and whispered he’d say yes if Tony ever asked.

It was time to ask. It was past time to ask.

If only Tony’s hands could stop sweating.

“Steven.” The sharp tone in Nat’s voice got Tony’s attention, and from the way Steve shifted, it had worked on Steve, too.

“Yes, Natasha?”

“Can we be done with this now?”

 _Nat, nooooooooo_ , Tony internally wailed.

“I need a job, Natasha,” Steve replied evenly.

“You don’t, actually, you just want one.”

“I can’t loaf off my boyfriend forever,” Steve snapped. “I’m not going to be a trophy-”

“But you’re not,” Nat interrupted him. “Tony has told you, I don’t know, somewhere in the neighborhood of eleven million times that he just wants you to be happy. That the money he has he’s barely earned, and he likes doing things with it that make people he loves happy. You trying to change the world through other people’s lenses is making us all miserable.”

“Thank you so much for that summary.”

Tony could basically feel Steve’s body tensing, as though for a fight. Dear god, do we have to do this now?

“Why haven’t you just started your own?” She continued.

“My own what?”

“Your own llama farm,” Nat said with a very dramatic eye roll. “Your own non-profit, you gorgeous idiot.”

The room stilled.

“Why have we literally never thought of that?” Tony asked with wonder in his voice.

“Because you’ve been too busy shoving round pegs into square holes,” Nat replied and went back to stringing popcorn and cranberries. “I do have one request, though.”

“What’s that?” Steve asked.

“Can you stay in the planning phases for, I don’t know, 18 to 24 months? Buck and I were thinking it would be great for Bean to be cared for by her godfathers while we were at work.”

“Her godfathers?” Tony said, slightly afraid to breathe. It made logical sense - they were Bucky and Nat’s closest friends. But Bucky had three sisters, and Nat was very close to her PA. He and Steve were a bit chaotic, and he’d been sure that they’d ask someone else.

 _That’s because of your abandonment issues, Anthony._ He heard the voice of Dr. Carruthers in his head and swatted her away.

“I can make some room in my schedule,” Steve replied. “I suddenly find myself a man of leisure.”

“Fantastic,” Bucky said, “because I got piles of IKEA furniture to put together for Bean, and I know how much you love flat pack furniture.”

“About as much as I love root canals,” Steve replied.

“Aw, I’m so touched, Stevie,” Bucky grinned. “Any time next week would be great.”

Steve flipped off his life-long best friend and settled back down into his boyfriend’s side. “You think I should?” He whispered to Tony.

“I do, baby,” Tony affirmed. “Let’s think about a cause you can spend all your time on -”

“I am a bit like a charitable ping pong ball,” Steve confessed.

Tony’s lips twisted into a barely suppressed smile. “One of the many things I love about you, but yes. Some focus might help.”

Steve snorted. “You take your extra polite pills this morning or something?”

“What?” Tony shook his head. “What are you talking about? I’m just responding to your plight.”

“Plight. Responding. Some focus.” Steve ticked things off on his fingers. “You’re being weird. Why are you being weird?”

“I’m not being weird,” Tony defended himself.

Steve reached for Tony’s hand, and then pulled back. “Why are your hands wet?”

“My hands are not wet, Steven, they are slightly clammy because I have been aiding Natasha in her quest to make our tree look like it is 1945.”

“You haven’t done a fucking thing, Stark,” Nat replied, interrupting them.

Steve shifted so he was sitting sideways on the couch and peering at Tony. “You’re being weird, your palms are sweaty, and that’s the first time you’ve made fun of Nat since I got home. What is going on?”

Tony made the mistake at that moment of cutting his eyes to the notepad on the table. He was trying to double check that Steve couldn’t see the draft he had been working on. Steve followed his eyes, however, and snatched the pad before Tony could stop him.

The bottom fell out of Tony’s stomach. _The draft isn’t ready! This is not how he is supposed to find out!_

“What’s your question, sweetheart?” Steve said slowly as he looked up from the paper and directly into Tony’s eyes.

“It’s nothing, Steve, it was just a clarification on something trivial, it can keep, don’t worry, why don’t we start a movie?”

Steve cupped his hand to the side of Tony’s face and drew him closer. “Are you trying to propose?”

The energy in the room froze and everything felt charged.

“Yes,” Tony whispered, and Steve's face broke out into a grin so wide it seemed cartoonish.

“Great, I say yes, will you stop panicking now?”

Tony’s heart skipped a beat. “Are you serious?”

“Quite the one-eighty from how I felt when I walked through the door,” Steve said by way of response. “I guess Christmas miracles do happen.”

“This is all only miraculous because you two bozos can’t use your words often enough,” Bucky chimed in, “but, sure, pal. Miraculous.”

“Excuse you, I just got engaged,” Steve said, not taking his eyes off of Tony.

“Oh did you? I’m sorry, I thought you casually agreed to make me a cup of coffee or something,” Bucky teased.

“Steve Rogers, I love you, and have loved you for a long time, and I want to be with you forever, because you make me see the world in new ways, and see myself in new ways, too, and you just make my life better, and I’d like that forever,” Tony said all in one breath.

Nat gasped gently, and it only added to the weight of the moment. He did want to ask, so he was glad Bucky busted their chops a bit so he could treat this with the respect it deserved.

“Tony Stark, I love you, and have loved you for a long time,” Steve repeated back, “and yes. Yes, yes, yes.”

Steve sealed his yes with a kiss, as Bucky whooped, and Nat said she’d go dig out celebratory drinks.

One-eighty indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked the story, I'd love to know! Kudos and comments are life giving. If you're not sure what to say in the comment, know that I take keyboard smashes and emojis as full love. So, if you liked it more than just a kudos, dropping a heart emoji is great and I thank you in advance.
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works. If you're on Discord, I'm definitely there, too, and probably hanging in the [Put on the Suit Stony Server ](https://discord.gg/z5WSqbS) or the [STB Enthusiasts Stuckony](https://discord.gg/ktXHUb4) one.  
>   
> Oh! And FestiveFerret and I have a [fandom podcast](http://www.podonthesuit.com) if you're so inclined.  
>   
> 


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